The Witch Hunters, Book 1: The Prophet of Ash

His first kill of the morning was a sleeping fellow, whose neck he snapped. The crack had woken the man lying next to him. A strike from his hammer had silenced the poor fool before could speak. Eisengrim did not like this way of carrying out his duties, but these people were too numerous for him and his colleagues to have any hope of arresting them all, and bringing back for trial before the King. This was a distasteful necessity. He encountered a young scaled male relieving himself against a tree with his back to the creeping old bull. It would have been a comical scenario, had it not ended with Eisengrim drawing his knife and slitting the boy’s throat.

Eisengrim’s ears perked at the sounds of chaos, as Gerda and the others turned from stealth to open war in their assault on the other camp. Their victims had apparently caused enough noise in their dying moments to awaken their fellows. The old minotaur ducked back into the bushes as the remaining people in the second camp roused themselves and began to panic. He skirted the edges, looking for the tent Gerda had described. Something large, circular, and big enough for his kind shouldn’t have been hard to find. It appeared between two trees ahead of him suddenly, as the old bull took advantage of the screaming and sounds of death. He had taken a step out of cover when a figure from the tent did likewise. They both saw one another at the same time and stopped, startled.

He was taller than the old bull by perhaps a hand’s length. A black breastplate accompanied a jumble of other bits and pieces that shielded a black, muscular hide. He was a monstrous figure, a bull full grown and in his prime. Eisengrim faltered. Dear God, his eyes…

They reacted. The black bull raised his hand, but Eisengrim was faster. He was back into the trees and diving as the blast hit. Instinct made him roll, and he saw trees with their roots trailing soil fly over him. He himself bounced along the shaking ground like a stone skipping across the water. He hit a tree, but the dying thing couldn’t keep him from flying further. It shattered like cheap glass, raining shards and splinters upon him as he kept going.

The world continued to spin even after he knew he must have stopped. The ringing in his ears made him deaf to everything, but the old bull knew he must move. If anything was broken, he was too numb just then to realise it. That was good. He could work with that. He found his hammer and dragged it from the oak it had impaled as he shook off the shattered trunks and branches that half buried him. Dead leaves filled the air like rain. A black figure stalked towards him out of all the pale death it had caused, carrying a dead civilisation’s great sword straight from a past that should have stayed buried.

“What are you waiting for?” Eisengrim said, though at what volume, he could not begin to guess. “Come here, calf! Let’s see if you know how to use that thing!”

The bull said something inaudible to Eisengrim’s still-ringing ears. The black beast lunged forward.

Eisengrim was ready for it. He used the shaft of his hammer to deflect the thrust. He tried a counter thrust of his own then, snapping out with the head of his hammer which the black minotaur dodged with a back step. Eisengrim followed him, swinging at his sword arm. The black bull parried, countered, his blade sliced past the bull’s guard with a speed Eisengrim was not ready for. It carved into his left shoulder.

Faster than me, Eisengrim realised.

Eisengrim hissed in pain even as the adrenaline helped numb the wound, side-stepping to the right as he swung again. The black bull caught the blow again, barely avoiding the impact of the hammer’s head even as the shaft smashed into his breastplate. Eisengrim surged forward then, trying to press his advantage, shoving the shaft of his hammer against the black bull’s chest, trying to knock him over by sheer force. The younger minotaur’s heels skidded a few inches and sank into the forest floor as he resisted. Soon, he moved no further. Eisengrim roared in frustration, throwing his full weight into his effort to overpower the young monster. He risked a glance upwards and looked into those awful eyes. A smug grin was made worse by those horrible orbs.

Stronger than me, too.

The old bull roared again, as if he were a clan elder facing a challenger back home. He surged forward, stubbornly, even as his limbs began to burn. A fleck of spittle fell on his head as the black bull tired of his elder. Rather than endure Eisengrim’s efforts further, the black minotaur began countering, shoving back with all his considerable strength. Eisengrim could feel himself losing ground, the heels of his boots cutting deep furrows in the dirt as the black bull forced him back, and back, and back. He let out a futile, frustrated roar, pushing back with all his might…

…then ducked suddenly to the right, dropping his hammer. He felt the bigger male lose his balance and stumble forward. Eisengrim, meanwhile, pulled his dagger from his vambrace as his hammer fell to the ground. The black bull’s foot snapped out to steady himself as the old minotaur stabbed the small blade up to the hilt in his enemy’s thigh, finding a gap in the armour. He twisted the blade. The black male threw his head back and screamed. Even with the ringing in his ears, Eisengrim heard that.

Not smarter, though.

The black male turned awkwardly and lashed out with his great sword in a raging two handed swing meant to cleave Eisengrim’s head from his shoulders. Had he swung lower, Eisengrim couldn’t have ducked beneath it, but he did, leaving his dagger sticking out of his enemy’s flank. As the blade cut empty air above his head, the old bull surged forward, charging headlong into his enemy’s torso. His horns glanced off of the breastplate, but this time the force of impact was enough to knock the black bull completely off his feet. Eisengrim wrapped his arms around the bull’s waist as they flew over his hammer. They crashed back into the dirt in a rolling, screaming, thrashing pile. The young monster abandoned his sword in the scuffle, wise enough to know the massive blade was useless in such close quarters. The black bull punched him across the snout, drawing blood and dislodging a tooth. When he drew back for another strike, the old bull head-butted him and felt bones break as blood welled from his nostrils. They spat and cursed at each other, tearing up the earth around them before things began to move faster, and an unmistakable feeling of gravity gripped them. They had reached the end of the plateau, and were rolling down the hill.

Shit.

The black bull tried to strangle him, as they rolled. Eisengrim tugged one-handed at the young minotaur’s thumbs while his other hand sought his short sword. They rolled into, and then through, a dead tree. The wreck of its trunk followed in their wake as splinters filled the air. The black bull tried to knee him in the groin, and Eisengrim head-butted him, again.

An awful crash brought things to a sudden halt. Eisengrim heard the sound of water somewhere not too far off and realised that his ears had finally stopped ringing. His vision was filled with black metal, and it took a long, unforgivable second for him to realise what was happening. They had come to a stop after crashing into an ancient oak of immense size. Unaffected by the black bull’s magic, it remained alive and sturdy enough to stop even two rolling minotaurs. He pulled himself onto his knees, scrabbling once more for the pommel of his short sword. The blade scraped against the edges of its scabbard as the two met each other’s eyes. Eisengrim drew the blade back as he stared into those impossible, monstrous orbs, but wasn’t fast enough to strike before the black bull raised a hand.

A clap of thunder swallowed him whole, washing over him like a wave as it lifted him up off the ground and hurled him into the air. The world spun about him again, as he tumbled like a doll hurled by an angry child.

I’m old, was the last thing Eisengrim thought as the ground rushed up to meet him.

When he came to, he found himself covered in dirt and shattered branches. He tried to move, but every limb and digit and inch of his hide objected vociferously. He had to lie still for a moment, to let the pain pass. He was on his side. He tried his limbs, one after another. Everything was in working order, more or less.

The bull!

Eisengrim groaned as he pushed himself up with shaking arms. He could just see the tree they’d slammed into beyond the slanted bit of land that separated it from the small clump of woods he’d found himself in. He looked around, his heart beginning to hammer once again in his ancient chest as he searched for, and finally found, his quarry.

The black bull was running, or trying to, his movements hampered by the dagger Eisengrim had rammed into his hip. A handful of survivors, along with another minotaur, feathered and bleeding, were running with him. He had retrieved his elven sword. Eisengrim noticed the boy flung over the shoulder of one of the men that followed the beast.

Martin.

The old bull forced his limbs to move. Eisengrim found a tree to use to prop him up, but the dead thing’s bark and trunk crumbled in his grip. His head was spinning and his limbs were reacting too slowly. Standing had taken him too long. When he tried to give chase, he only made it a couple of steps before falling back into the dirt, his head throbbing, his limbs dead.

I’m old. I’m too damned old.

His quarry disappeared back into the woods. Eisengrim watched, waiting for the pain to pass, and the strength to return to his arms and legs. He hoped his friends were all still alive. There seemed very few of their enemy left standing.

Unlike me.

Eisengrim was not sure when it happened, but he found himself staring up at the sky. He blinked, surprised. Had he fallen asleep? He tried to move, and felt something propping his head up, and a blanket covering him. His armour was gone. Confused, the old bull looked around and tried to speak, but not even his voice was willing to obey him just then.

Theo sat nearby, naked from the waist up. He’d sprouted a bloody gash across his chest that he was not looking at. Klara and Dietrich flanked him. Klara was readying a needle and silk thread while Dietrich was slowly cleaning the wound with a bottle of strong alcohol. At that moment, Theo looked terribly young. He was talking, or at least trying to through tightly grit teeth. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, despite what the veteran hunters were probably telling him about remaining calm. He looked up at Dietrich with what looked like tears in his eyes. Eisengrim watched the young bull with pity. He had been in that position many a time in his youth. The first time a wound was stitched was always the most frightening.

Gerda appeared, then. She looked worried, but was otherwise unscathed. She knelt down by his head, and Eisengrim suddenly remembered the small, hungry girl that had tried to steal his chicken one cold night on the road.

Gerda patted his cheek, smiling. “You silly old cow.”

“You little thief,” the old bull groaned back. He wanted to put his hand over the dwarf’s, but he felt so tired. “What’s your report?”

“They got away, but not a lot of them. Most that we didn’t kill scattered all over the place. They went over the bridge. That black cousin of yours destroyed it after him, so we couldn’t follow.”

“Did any of their horses make it over with them?”

Gerda’s smile grew dark. She shook her head.

“What now, old cow?”

“We go to Anderswo,” Eisengrim declared, at once. “Where we shall pick up his Grace, and some medicine for poor Theo. If they are heading for the Dead Lands, and I think they are, then they will have to cross back to this side of the river eventually. We must find the next logical crossing point. We shall leave in an hour.”

“If you try getting up in an hour,” Gerda informed him. “I’ll smack you over the head with the butt of my crossbow. You need to rest, you stubborn old cow.”

“Very well,” Eisengrim grumbled. “We’ll leave in three. Will that be better for your feminine constitution?”

“Aye,” Gerda nodded, rising. She lingered. She had cried so when he had caught her, and all the awful things she had seen had come spilling out at once. “It’ll do. Get some sleep now, ya hear? Can’t have you leaving us just yet. We need you, you silly old cow.”

Eisengrim nodded. He wanted to tell Gerda how proud he was of her, but he was so tired. As she’d said, he was a rather old bull, now. He slipped away for a while, and dreamed of frightened children, and all the great strength they hid.